The Death of David Kelly - "Madeleine McCann, yes. David Kelly, no"

Regular readers of the Independent will be familiar with the repetitious, fatuous inanities of one John Rentoul on the subject of the murder of Dr. David Kelly.

However, the Independent today shows that there is still hope that it may get it right ... in the end.

Today, Richard Ingrams demonstrates more insight into the matter of David Kelly's death in a few lines than John Rentoul has managed in his lifetime.

The ripples from Sir Peter Tapsell's question at Prime Ministers Questions on 18th May 2011 continue to spread out.

Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con): Now that there is to be a full investigation into the abduction or murder of Madeleine McCann, is there not a much stronger case for a full investigation into the suicide or murder of Dr David Kelly?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is raising two issues. First, on the issue of Madeleine McCann, it is welcome that the Metropolitan police has decided to review the case and the paperwork. On the issue of Dr David Kelly, I thought the results of the inquest that was carried out and the report into it were fairly clear, and I do not think it is necessary to take that case forward.

Richard Ingrams' piece today on David Kelly is on this page: Richard Ingrams: Emptied streets give the lie to Anglo-Irish bonds.

The comment on the death of David Kelly is entitled, "Madeleine McCann, yes. David Kelly, no".

I quote the relevant material in full here. Copyright, of course, remains with the Independent and/or Richard Ingrams.

For some months a campaign led by Dr Michael Powers QC and a group of fellow-doctors had been gaining ground for a proper inquest to be held into the death of the weapons inspector Dr David Kelly.

There were always plenty of arguments in favour, not least the fact that Lord Hutton, who replaced the Oxfordshire coroner on government orders, made such a cursory attempt to deal with the many suspicious elements in Dr Kelly's supposed suicide, which remain unexplained to this day – the lack of blood on the ground, the evidence that the body had been moved after death, the lack of any fingerprints on the knife, not to mention the lack of any suicide note or, for that matter, any evidence that Dr Kelly was in a suicidal state. Hutton made little or no attempt to address any of these awkward points

Then, presumably in order to silence the many doubters, the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, last year released the post-mortem report made at the time of Kelly's death by pathologist Dr Norman Hunt who described it as "a textbook suicide". It was hardly surprising that Dr Powers and his colleagues failed to be satisfied with this bizarre conclusion.

Then this week Dr Kelly surfaced again at Prime Minister's Questions when veteran Tory MP Sir Peter Tapsell asked David Cameron for a full investigation "into the suicide or murder of Dr David Kelly". Cameron replied: "I don't think it's necessary to take that case forward." So that appears to be that. As a former PR man, Cameron prefers to reopen the Madeleine McCann file, for obvious reasons.

Quite!

One erratum. The pathologist was, of course, Dr. Nicholas Hunt.